Can restoring the water cycle cool land and climate? Scientific basis and property-scale assessment using the EcoDynamics Diagnostic Engine

Abstract

A working water cycle cools the land. Where soil takes in and holds rain and plants keep transpiring, more of the sun's energy is carried away as latent heat in water vapour, leaving less to heat the surface and air directly. The soil microbiologist Walter Jehne places this process within a wider account connecting soil structure, water and climate. This paper brings his framework together, reviews the evidence and describes how the EcoDynamics Diagnostic Engine (EDDE) assesses cooling at property scale. At a case-study property in South West England, local surface cooling is measurable. Cooling and carbon uptake also track the Land Health Score across the assessed fields, consistent with their shared dependence on vegetation function. A planetary cooling effect remains unproven. These findings provide a starting point for EDDE's investigation of that larger question.